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It is hard to imagine any nicer place to eat than in a dome-diner. As shown below, the dome portions of the COP and COLA diners were nearly identical. The back of this postcard says it is from the City … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Postcard
In the early 1950s, the City of Los Angeles was Union Pacific’s all-Pullman equivalent of the Santa Fe Super Chief. Since it didn’t have coaches, it gained only two domes in 1955: a dome-diner and a dome-observation. This meant passengers … Continue reading
The City of Portland was initially the only Union Pacific domeliner to have all three kinds of UP domes, including a dome-coach, dome-diner, and dome-observation cars. This gave passengers 66 dome seats for viewing scenery, although at least during dinner … Continue reading
The Union Pacific competed with the Santa Fe between Chicago and Los Angeles and with the Northern Pacific between Chicago and Portland, so when those two railroads added domes to their streamliners, the UP reluctantly followed. Domes were expensive–the UP … Continue reading
Here are some postcards the Northern Pacific offered passengers who wanted to tell friends about their trip aboard the North Coast Limited. Click any image to download a PDF of the postcard. As portrayed in this Leslie Ragan painting and … Continue reading
One of my earlier posts criticized the 1948 North Coast Limited for having a drab and inadequate lounge car. That finally changed in June, 1955 when the NP converted its coach-buffet-lounge cars into the Traveller’s Rest cars, an homage to … Continue reading
In an effort to compete with the California Zephyr and City of San Francisco, in July, 1954, the Santa Fe inaugurated its San Francisco Chief. In addition to coaches, sleepers, and a diner, each of the six trains included a … Continue reading
In October 1952, at a cost of $16 million (about $136 million in today’s money), the Burlington completed construction of a new 49-mile segment of track that saved two hours on its route between Chicago and Kansas City. On February … Continue reading
A B&O brochure calls the Columbian “The Train of the Year.” Although the Pennsylvania Railroad had completely re-equipped the all-Pullman Broadway Limited just 45 days before the B&O introduced the new Columbian, the nation’s oldest railroad could make the case … Continue reading
On May 5, 1949–just 45 days after the California Zephyr‘s inaugural run–the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad introduced the first dome cars in regular service east of Chicago. The cars, which the B&O called “strata-domes,” were part of the Columbian, an … Continue reading